By DANNIELLE ROBINSON
THE Federal Government should think through its plan to resurrect its binge-drinking tax after it failed to pass in the Senate.
It also plans not to return any of the revenue it has already collected.
This alone raises some issues. Should the Government be able to use retrospective legislation powers to collect tax revenue before the Parliament gives assent? Should the Government use ‘sin taxes’ in an attempt to control or modify the behaviour of Australians?
The alcopop tax revival follows a year of debate by Government, industry, health groups and the public. Opinions are divided as to whether the tax will be successful or whether it is a case of “money grabbing”.
Federal taxes on pre-mixed alcoholic drinks, alcopops, were increased by 70 per cent last year under a Government plan to tackle binge-drinking among teenagers, particularly girls. Under the increase, the excise on alcopops leapt from $39.36 per litre of alcohol content to $66.67 to address binge-drinking among people aged 12 to 17..
In any given week, approximately one in ten of them are binge-drinking.
The tax seeks to price alcopops out of the reach of teenagers. However, the Government should be targeting all alcohol consumption by under-age drinkers.
Under-age binge-drinking raises a number of questions. Who is selling or supplying alcohol to under-age drinkers? Are current laws not being enforced strongly enough? Would increasing fines for sale or supplying of alcohol to under-age people act as a stronger deterrent?
Many issues need to be addressed to prevent under-age binge-drinking, including increased education, changing Australia’s alcohol culture and better enforcement of penalties for sale or supply to under-age people.
The tax seeks to prevent binge-drinking by increasing the price of alcopops but does nothing to prevent the purchase of beer, wine or straight spirits. Simple consumer behaviour dictates that young people, when faced with a choice between a newly high-taxed, expensive alcoholic product and a cheaper alcoholic product, will move towards the cheaper product.
And sugary-mixed drinks similar to alcopops are easy to make. Add soft drink, fruit juice or energy drink to a straight spirit and you have an instant alcopop. This is a problem. Self-mixing drinks can make it difficult to know how much alcohol is being consumed because when most people pour much stronger drinks than the dose in an alcopop.
The Distilled Spirits Industry Council of Australia (DSICA) has claimed that a switch from purchasing pre-mixed drinks in cans or bottles to open beverages can put women at increased risk of drink spiking. The alcopop tax-hike conflicts with the Federal Government’s own National Drug Strategy public education campaign which states “…the public be encouraged to drink bottled or canned beverages at licensed premises to make drink-spiking more difficult”.
Statistics released by DSICA funded studies and anecdotal evidence suggests that the tax has failed to prevent binge drinking. Studies conducted by the Government and various health groups, who will benefit from extra funding if the tax is passed, present strong evidence that the tax is successful. So who do you believe?
The problem is that the organisations that control the data have a vested interest in how it is viewed. The Government wants to prove the tax is working whilst industry wants to show it’s merely a revenue-raising exercise. Furthermore, alcohol sale statistics don’t tell us which age-group is buying the alcohol so cannot be used to determine the effectiveness of the tax increase .
Access Economics released a report in February 2009 which concluded that the alcopops tax had not led to a decrease in alcohol-related hospital admissions which suggests the tax has been unsuccessful.
Other countries, including England, Ireland, Germany and Switzerland, have tried alcopop tax increases but found they failed to prevent youth binge-drinking. Alcopops were simply replaced by other forms of alcohol.
The tax will not prevent binge drinking. Instead it will provide young people with several choices.
1) Pay the higher price for alcopops and get drunk all the same.
2) Switch from alcopops to another form of alcohol and continue to drink.
3) Buy widely available illicit drugs such as ecstasy or amphetamines.
The alcopops tax is like telling kids in a lolly shop that the most popular lollies have gone up in price, but the remaining lollies are still available for the same price. Would this would stop kids buying lollies?
